HBS Goes to the Movies: The Conversation (1974)

The HBS hosts discuss Coppola's classic treatment of Nixon-era surveillance and paranoia.

Released in 1974, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation is often hailed as one of the defining films of the post-Watergate era, a film dealing with surveillance, conspiracy, and paranoia. While it is definitely about that in many ways, it is also an interesting study of a particular kind of subject, and a particular ideal of subjectivity. Gene Hackman’s Harry Caul is a man who endeavors to be an island, to have no connections with anyone, and to focus just on the pure technical details of his work, without thinking about its larger implications. “It has nothing to do with me” is his general attitude, even as he wrestles with the implications of his work. Lastly, through its use of sound and surveillance, it is a film which asks the question of both its characters and its viewers, what does it mean to know something? 

What is the connection between fear and knowledge, desire and knowledge?

Full episode notes available at this link:
https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-91-hbs-goes-to-the-movies-the-conversation-1974

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